Member’s Voice

Posts from and by Forum members.

Empty green, red and black wheelchair

Disability Invisibility in Conflict

The media rarely considers the impact of being disabled in war zones, apartheid states, colonised and exploited countries, and as a result our unique concerns and experiences go under the radar and are rendered invisible.  As highlighted by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, everyone in Palestine is disabled right now. Whether from famine and lack of clean […]

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Reads: Direct Payments: A family's experience

Challenging times for disabled people and unpaid carers using direct payments (DPs): One family’s diary

In January 2021 Ben and I wrote a blog about the difficulties we faced in lockdown. Love, care and common sense got us through the Covid crisis. We were looking forward to better days. We weren’t expecting another crisis so soon! But come 2022, as an older carer, I needed to think about strengthening Ben’s

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A wheelchair adapted vehicle has it's rear open and a ramp down

The Advantages of Motor Vehicles for Disabled People (or why taking away our parking in city centres is disabling)

Thanks York Accessibility Action for this important post about why disabled people may need their vehicle, and how taking away parking is disabling us. Please note, you can download a longer version of this post. This post will offer a condensed version. In recent years we have seen an increasing number of local authorities explicitly

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A question mark

‘Am I Disabled Enough?’ Imposter Syndrome and Invisible Disability

Hazel writes about experiencing feelings of ‘not being disabled enough’ and the effect this has on disability identity. When growing up I essentially learnt that “disabled” only really meant physical things, in fact mainly visible ones. Disability was discussed as something to pity, as something that you could see, something that was obvious and could

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Illustration of three people talking. Each is in a separate frame and icons at the bottom of the image imply that they're talking via video conferencing

What do disabled people want in York

Last night, we held a meeting to talk about what you want us to work on in the coming year. Our annual survey helped us establish three priorities: Health and Care Attitudes and Awareness Physical Accessibility The discussion doesn’t stop now, if you were unable to attend, you can tell us how these topics affect

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A Blue Badge clock dial

Wanting less traffic doesn’t mean wanting no Blue Badge holders

Jamie has kindly written a guest blog for us, talking about the footstreets issue specifically around a Freedom of Information request he made. You have the right to ask to see recorded information held by public authorities and can ask to see this under the Freedom of Information Act. TLDR: Jamie talks about the information

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